Louis Gaudinot may cave to a haircut following UFC on FOX 3 victory

When your girlfriend, cornermen and boss tell you to cut your florescent locks, well, what are you gonna do?

“I was thinking about cutting it before the fight,” Gaudinot told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). “I’m kind of used to the long hair now, but I think I might have to cut it just for the next fight so it doesn’t get in my face.”

Gaudinot (6-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC) has worn a mop of green hair for almost two years without cutting it, and he said he won’t change the color. A trim, though, might be in his best career interests.

Usually, the grooming choices of fighters don’t merit this much attention. But when your hair causes them to get punched in the face more than usual, people take notice.

Which is why Gaudinot’s cornermen fretted over it between rounds in a barnburner with fellow flyweight John Lineker (19-6 MMA, 0-1 UFC) on the FX-televised preliminary-card of UFC on FOX 3, which took place this past Saturday at IZOD Center in East Rutherford, N.J. They said the only time he got caught during his submission victory was when his hair was in his face.

Even UFC president Dana White piled on at the post-fight press conference, asking Gaudinot when he’d cut it.

Not that his hair kept him from performing well. White awarded Gaudinot a $65,000 bonus check for his “Fight of the Night” performance, a first considering that Lineker didn’t make weight the day prior.

The pace of the action even surprised Gaudinot, whose debut to UFC audiences came as a bantamweight on “The Ultimate Fighter 14,” and his still-worried cornermen, who yelled for him to take down Lineker.

“I remember looking up at the clock, and I saw there were three minutes left in round one,” he said. “I felt like, ‘Damn, I thought we were swinging it out for 10 minutes already.'”

Even with the unpleasant news, Gaudinot was mad that his coaches would imply he was losing on the feet, so he continued to swing.

“‘Screw that, I’m going to stay here and bang with him; I’m going to win this,'” he said to himself.

As it turned out, though, his coaches were right: The ground game was where he would win. He grabbed a guillotine in the second round and put Lineker to sleep.

“I knew watching film on this guy that we were going to have a good fight and that the fans would like it,” Gaudinot said. “The first two flyweight fights they had in the UFC were great, and I knew we would keep it going and show the fans that the little guys deserve to be there.”

With the 125-pound division still taking shape, Gaudinot, who dropped to flyweight after a loss to Johnny Bedford at The Ultimate Fighter 14 Finale, could be a fight or two away from a shot at the winner of a flyweight tournament expected to wrap later this year. John Dodson, who served alongside him on “TUF” and won the show at bantamweight, was also victorious as a flyweight at UFC on FOX 3 and could be on deck as an opponent.

If that happens, fans can expect to see more of Gaudinot’s eyes when he fights – looking less Clay Guida and more like Chris Leben.